Winners of Essay Competition on Conditions of a Free Society Announced

Public Relations

Posted: Tuesday Apr 9, 2013

April 9, 2013

Saint Vincent College’s Center for Political and Economic Thought has announced the winners in a national academic writing contest – the Douglas B. Rogers Conditions of a Free Society Essay Competition – that was open to all full-time undergraduate students studying in any field at any four-year college or university in the United States or Canada.

The first place winner was Holden Diethorn, a senior economics major from Latrobe, whose essay was titled, “A Bastiat-Inspired Theory of Government Intervention.” Second place winner was Nikita Chirkov of Trinity University, “Degrees of Statism.” Third place winner was Danielle Charette of Swarthmore College, “The Great Fiction of the State: Re-fusing American Conservatives and Libertarians Behind Classical-Liberalism.”

The following students earned honorable mentions: Alexander Brown of Grove City College; Kerry Hunt of University of Notre Dame; Jonathan Miller of Carnegie Mellon University; Warren Mills of Troy University; and Kadeem Noray of Hillsdale College.

The competition was designed to honor the memory of the late Douglas B. Rogers (Ph.D., George Mason University), a young scholar of great promise who died tragically, and to encourage scholarly discussion of individual freedom, limited constitutional government, free market economics and the philosophical and moral foundations of America and the West.

Submissions addressed the following prompt by Frédéric Bastiat: “The state is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”

The first place winner received $2,000 at an awards dinner and lecture by Dr. John Taylor of Stanford University, on March 20 at Saint Vincent. Second and third place winners received $1,000 and $500 respectively. Honorable mentions received $200.

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Photo: Holden Diethorn, right, of Latrobe and a senior economics major at Saint Vincent College, was presented with the first place award of $2,000 in the Saint Vincent College Center for Political and Economic Thought national academic writing contest – the Douglas B. Rogers Conditions of a Free Society Essay Competition. Also participating in the presentation on March 20 at the Fred M. Rogers Center were, from left, Jonathan Miller of Carnegie Mellon University, honorable mention awardee; and members of the sponsoring Rogers family, Gabrielle, Theresa and Rob Rogers.